I posted before about joining Bookmooch. Well, two months on and I still love it but one thing it hasn’t done is clear space on my bookshelf. The pile above is a portion of the books I have to read and doesn’t include a couple more that sit on my bedside table and there are more on the way! It’s just too much fun though, I love getting these book packages from all over the world and the little notes and postcards that come with them.

Every photographer seems to have their own way of converting their digital photographs into black & white depending on their style. I write this tutorial as a way to offer you just one way of doing it, certainly not the only way or the right way. I should also say that I like my black & white photographs to be just that…black and white. I suppose you could call it “high key” which not everyone likes. High key means that the image is high contrast or even over-exposed. So if you don’t like that kind of image, you may want to tone things down, but don’t worry, I hope this tutorial will show you that it’s easy to adjust to your own taste. I have a number of different things that I do to create different effects in my images but this is what I do when I just want to keep it plain and simple.

These instructions should be straightforward enough for a novice photoshop user although it presumes you’ve used Photoshop before and know a few of the terms like Layers and Opacity. No filters are used, just basic settings that should be in all versions of Photoshop (although I’m not sure about Elements since I’ve never used it).

So, without anymore faff and disclaiming, fire up Photoshop and give this a go: (more…)

I’ve always been a bookworm, I can lose hours in a bookshop and never come away from one without an armload of new books to add to my stash. As a result I have a bit of a space problem. Most of the time I solve this by making regular trips to the Exchange Bookshop in Dalkey, a shop I’ve been going to since I was about 12 and it was just a little cramped room full of Fantasy and Science Fiction novels. Now I’m down in da country I don’t get to Dalkey so often and so my bookshelves are starting to buckle again.

I decided to go online and see if I could find anything that would help me clear out my library and I found a couple of book swapping sites (PaperbackSwap and ReadItSwapIt), unfortunately none of them would allow international members. Just as I was thinking I’d have to set up my own (ha!) I found Book Mooch which not only allows international “mooches” but you even get extra credit points for them. I love the design of the site too, the homepage illustration really jumped out at me (I’m a sucker for good illustration) and there’s also a blog by founder, John Buckman.

The way it works is:
1. You sign up and list the books you own that you’re willing to give away.
2. Other users email you requesting your books.
3. You send them those books and receive points in exchange (1 point for addresses in your own country, 3 points for international ones).
4. Using those points you can request books you want from other users.

Simple! I’ve already signed up and you can see my books here.

** Illustration credit Andrice Arp, courtesy of BookMooch.com **

This is a post I’ve been thinking about for awhile. It’s by no means meant to be some kind of exhaustive list of the laws of photography, or even a set of rules that I think people ought to be following. It’s just some of the things I try to keep in my mind anytime I’m going out to take photographs because I think that it makes for more interesting pictures. There are more of course but I wanted to keep it to a nice even ten and also these are ones that could be applied whether you’re using a fancy DSLR or a camera phone:

1. High Noon

Midday is the most boring light of the day. Mornings and evenings are much more interesting and the shadows are more flattering if you’re photographing people.

2. A Different Point Of View

Avoid shooting straight from eye level. Kneel (or lie!) down, stand on a wall or hold your camera high or low or somewhere where you can’t look through the viewfinder. This takes a bit of practice and you’ll probably have to brace your camera against the ground or a wall, but when it works it’s my favourite kind of shot.

3. What’s It All About?

Give your landscapes context. That could mean a person, or a building, an animal or even a single flower or tree. Anything that shows the scale and gives it a focal point.

4. The Devil’s In The Details

I think this motto applies to anything creative because it’s always that little extra detail that you add that makes the drawing or animation stand out, not just photography. Look for the story in the scene you’re shooting and pick out the details that give it that extra something special. Don’t settle for the first obvious few shots that you immediately see, get them out of the way and then look a little harder.

5. Shakin’ All Over

When you’re not hanging off the edge of a cliff attempting tip number 2, remember to hold your camera properly. If you can, brace yourself by leaning a shoulder against a wall or find a steady surface to rest your camera on. If you’re standing, stand with your feet slightly apart, tuck your elbows in, exhale and squeeze, don’t stab, the shutter. Relax!

6. Zoom Zoom

Don’t use the zoom to frame your shots. Know why you’re choosing a particular focal length and then either move closer or farther away from your subject to get the correct framing.

7. Composition Made Easy

Composition can be made to sound very complicated but just three simple things will improve the look of your shots. First, try putting the focal point or subject in one of the four corners of your photograph. Second, horizon lines are best in the top third or bottom third of the frame, not the middle (I admit, I break this one a lot). Third, diagonal lines are more interesting than straight ones.

8. The Sky’s The Limit

If the sky isn’t interesting then leave it out of the photograph. Avoid the white sky of death that we see so often here in Ireland, especially during the winter. Try to find a better angle, perhaps get up a bit higher and take a shot looking down or put your subject in front of a colourful wall. Anything but a huge expanse of pale grey nothing.

9. Fill The Frame

Following on from that, make every part of your picture count. Take a minute to look at what’s around the thing you’re photographing. Does the background help the photo by creating a frame and leading your eye to the subject, or does it distract? If it’s all a big jumble think about either changing your angle so the background is free of clutter or move in closer.

10. The Dirty Little Secret

While I do think that you’re better off trying to get your photos as “finished” as possible in-camera, don’t be ashamed of using Photoshop. So many photographers seem to try and play it down, mumbling that they did a tiny bit of Photoshop on their photo as if confessing to cheating. No amount of Photoshop will fix a bad photograph but it does have it’s place and is a wonderful tool. Remember that even film photographers play around with chemicals, exposures, cropping and paper types in the darkroom to get similar effects. In my opinion, I think the best way to use Photoshop is 95% enhancement (saturation, contrast, black and white conversion) and 5% fixing of mistakes (cropping, white balance, clone tool). Don’t use it to get rid of double chins or make people’s legs longer and skinnier…that kind of stuff can be seen a mile away.

So that’s my little manifesto. Feel free to disregard them all (well except for the double chin thing…that’s non-negotiable) and if you have any of your own please, please leave a comment and share them with me.

I’m feeling a little tired this morning. Four hour’s sleep just doesn’t even come close to being enough for me these days. Still it was worth it because not only did we get to see “Hot Fuzz” we also got to hear Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright talk about the making of the film. They jokingly described it as a Hot Police Romp (or HoPoRo); it’s the story of an overachieving London policeman (Simon Pegg) transferred to a seemingly sleepy village when his big city colleagues feel he is showing them up. There he is paired up with a slightly dim but lovable village police officer (Nick Frost) who thinks his new partner has just stepped out of Bad Boys or Point Break.

Inevitably the question I keep getting is “Was it as good as Shaun of the Dead?” and to be absolutely honest I would have to say that no, Shaun is still leagues ahead. Hot Fuzz seemed slower, more cumbersome at times and for me it lacked the swing of emotions, from laughter, to scary, to genuinely touching, that made Shaun of the Dead something a little bit more than just a comedy. Still, this film has it’s share of very clever humour and the film really picks up and comes into its own in the second half. The action and laughs (and gore of course) all ratchet up a few notches in the last half hour. Before then there is a sense that perhaps they had a few too many cool ideas that they just couldn’t bear to edit out or there were just so many people lining up to have a cameo part that getting all those actors introduced and worked into the storyline weighed it down.

I hate saying anything bad about it though, since I walked out of the cinema with a smile on my face and I know I’ll buy the DVD and watch it again. Especially for the extras which they told us include a new Michael Caine, Sean Connery version of one of the scenes from the movie.

The three guys didn’t stay to watch, they had to run off to the Meteor Awards after they’d introduced the film to present an award to Westlife. They got back just as the credits were rolling and sat down at the front of the screen for the Q&A. I got the impression that they are incredibly nice guys, genuinely bowled over at their popularity and appreciative of their fans. They talked about how Shaun of the Dead had come out of where they were living at the time (East London) whereas Hot Fuzz was more a film about where they grew up. Their preparation for writing the script came through watching hours and hours of police movies just like the ones Nick Frost’s character is a fan of in the film.

I only wish they could have spoken more, or at least answered more questions from the audience. Only a couple of people got to ask anything because the compere’s questions went on so long. People were mumbling that he was someone from TV3 but he didn’t introduce himself properly…I guess he just presumed everyone recognised him. His questions weren’t even proper questions, more like rambling statements that he’d finally offer to the guys to either agree or disagree with.

Annoying Irish telly interviewer aside, we had a great night. I would say definitely go and see this film, like Nick Frost’s character would say, “You just have to learn to switch off.”